A Point Of Design: The RCA and Crown collaborate

What do you get when you combine a paint manufacturing company and one of London’s most prestigious art universities? You’ve guessed it - furniture!

Two stunning trompe l'oeil-inspired chairs are the latest innovative additions to emerge from Crown Paints 2011 collaboration with the Royal College of Art which challenges its students to ‘up-cycle’ furniture, adding a new lease of life with a lick of paint. The aforementioned chairs join other products created through this unique collaboration: a retro psychedelic sideboard and a multi-functional, hanging chair available from Graham and Green later this month.

The distinctive chairs were designed by menswear student, Emily-Jane Murray, who was inspired by the 60’s concept of ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’. Murray recreated the effects of quilting, weaving and padding to enhance the design with paint, transforming the furniture into something entirely unique – great for customising a living space. Made in conjunction with paint-specialist, Tabby Riley - who brought the up-cycled furniture designs to life using a range of Crown primers and undercoats plus Crown’s paints for wood and metal - it really is amazing what you can do with old furniture and an old can of paint in this modern day of austerity.

LFW Diary AW11: Felicity Brown

A designer whom I’d heard great things about last season through Fashion East’s talent platform; Felicity Brown is certainly ‘one to watch’. Her inaugural collection for SS11 featured a plethora of hand-dyed silks and ruffled dresses, inspired by Japanese origami, Bedouin women, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings of showy girls in disheveled, provoking dresses, as well as her own study of flowers – creating an overtly feminine collection with layering at its core.

Repeating her signature design aesthetic for AW11, the NEWGEN sponsored designer really caught my eye during LFW, incorporating what looked to be subtle tribal prints to great effect. First spotted during her Royal College of Art graduate show – from which the collection was selected to be exhibited at Sotheby’s of London - Brown went on to design for Alberta Ferretti, Loewe, Mulberry and Lanvin before setting up her own label based in Brick Lane. Highly influenced by tribal designs from around the world, Brown told Vogue.com: “I like looking at tribal costumes from all over the world and the way tribes mark themselves. I find that much more fascinating than minimal tailoring. I made each individual piece that forms each dress separately. At the last minute I smashed it all together and that was it.”